


Shallow Armour

by faith_girl222 (faithgirl)



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Gen, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-22
Updated: 2004-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4173333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithgirl/pseuds/faith_girl222
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>making believe is easier than it seems.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shallow Armour

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through 3x08 "Lovers' Walk." Originally posted July 22, 2004.
> 
> Beta by helbel85.

Cordelia learned a long time ago that pretending things don't matter made dealing with them easier. So long as she could snark about her mother's illness, it didn't affect her. If she could pretend she didn't want real friends the lack of them didn't hurt.

It had been easy to make fun of Jesse when Cordelia could still pretend she didn't want someone who could see beyond her popularity. Everyone else who wanted her acted like she did; it was comforting to hurt someone who could give her what she wanted. It proved she didn't want it. Not like her friends would question her motives; Cordy did that for herself.

But then he died or was killed or turned or whatever. And now she was with Xander, at least she'd been yesterday.

Once upon a time it wouldn't have hurt, being cheated on, it would just have pissed her off. She missed that time.

* * *

When she walked down the hall where Xander's locker was, on the way to American History, everything seemed to move in slow motion. Xander and Willow stood awkwardly together. But Cordelia imagined, as her gaze refused to meet Xander's own, that they were smiling and laughing. They'd done it. They'd broken Queen C.

* * *

She'd got back in with her old crowd by Christmas. Harmony and the Cordettes. It pleased and amused her that even after their falling out and Harm's subsequent take over the name couldn't be lost. They could never become the Harmonies or the Harmettes.

It almost pissed Cordelia off how easy it was to get back in. Show up in a one-of-a-kind dress, share a few new cheer moves, and boom. When Cordy was head of the clique it would have taken months of groveling. She let the anger pass; she'd got what the wanted.

* * *

Aspen was the site of Cordelia's true resurrection. It wasn't warm, she couldn't walk around outside in sandals and dresses. So she locked herself in her hotel room, worked on her reinvention. The new Queen C, Cordelia Chase version 2.0, now with old features.

She didn't call Harmony or Aura the whole two weeks she was there. Spent the time carefully deciding exactly what she thought of Xander. Memorized the clench in her gut and taste in her mouth. The thoughts drifted away. They were too complicated, and too heavy to be kept. All she needed was the clench and the taste.

* * *

Cordelia had always taken every opportunity to taunt Xander. Now she went to the trouble of manufacturing situations to hurt him. And she never let it come off as post-break up needling, or "you broke my heart, you bastard" lashing out. Because it wasn't. What made her popular wasn't her money or her looks, or the really wonderful outfits she put together. It was her ability to put people in their place. It was once more "you're a loser" barbs. Like the old days.

Often she would pretend it was the old days. That things had never been messy or confusing or complicated. That they hadn't some how come full circle. Because, really, this was easier. Being alone with other people had been her default preference since the first day of pre-school. She'd been stupid enough to let herself hope, but Cordelia Chase wasn't stupid enough to make the same mistake twice.

When Cordy let herself think about it, she knew she'd been smart even while she was making the biggest mistakes of her life. Buffy had made her optimistic that maybe these people could be real friends. And the voice of 3-year-old Cordy in her head telling her what a good deal this could have been wouldn't shut up, but she went slow. And the dead bodies that always cropped up around Buffy & Co. certainly helped. Cordelia let herself believe, be changed. Changed herself for Xander. Allowed herself to be changed by Xander and his friends.

Ultimately though, she'd ended up alone all by herself, and she was never ever letting that happen again.

* * *

Cordelia didn't like to think of Jesse's pathetic crush on her. Power over the weak, was and had always been, irrelevant, useless. But when she was stuck sitting next to Xander in class, and he'd keep giving her sidelong glances, she thought about it. Couldn't help it when Jesse and Xander were so linked, even when she couldn't properly make that connection in her head. Xander was the only guy to know almost all her secrets. But he never shared his. She'd sit there in Chemistry and wonder if he knew she'd guessed his biggest one. If he even knew about it himself.

Jesse had always loved her. She and Xander had always hated each other. It had killed Xander that his best friend loved his worst enemy. Xander and Cordelia fought, and she never gave the darker boy behind him a second thought. Somehow that translated into his warped brain that it was okay to like her. She wondered if Jesse had truly loved her, or if he was like 80% of the student body and loved/hated her because she was/had what he wanted.

Xander wasn't like that, and that was always the part that confused Cordelia. Xander might have been a loser, but he'd never wanted her or what she had. Cordy had given him a billion reasons to hate her, and Xander hated her for every one of them.

But then Jesse died, and eight months later Xander was making out in broom closets with his most hated acquaintance and his dead best friend's lifelong crush.

Cordelia would always wonder if Xander noticed how that looked, what it said about him, about them, about Jesse, and even about her.

Maybe Cordelia wasn't the only one who pretended, made things matter less so there wasn't as much room for the blade to sink in.


End file.
